Preface

A century ago, this state’s growing need for a more
efficient and modern justice system resulted in the creation
of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court.

The First Judicial Department of the Appellate Division has
for one hundred years served the communities of Manhattan
and the Bronx. Now we commemorate the Centennial Anniversary
of the Court’s founding in 1896.

From its beginning the Court has been closely intertwined
with the life of New York City, a city unique in America for
its leadership in the fields of art and industry, in financial
and intellectual life.

Although individual styles and ideas have changed dramatically
over the past hundred years, the rule of law remains a constant.
As it has helped us to find our way through the complexities
of the 20th century, so it will guide New Yorkers through
the future.

Over the last one hundred years, millions of people have
seen New York as their first glimpse of America. Here millions
of others have come from across the nation to test themselves
and their talents, to measure themselves against the city’s
standards of excellence. New York has always been different.
Everything in America that was new in technology or science,
in art and literature, was first new in New York. Today, 7
million people live in the city; another million commute here
to work every day.